Mittwoch, 20. Januar 2010

UPDATE! CONFIRMED: MANY RACCOONS WERE KILLED ILLEGALLY A FEW DAYS AGO - Central Park NYC

Original Message:
-----------------

UPDATE! CONFIRMED: MANY RACCOONS WERE KILLED ILLEGALLY A FEW DAYS AGO- PLEASE FORWARD IF YOU HAVE TIME. NO NEED TO REPLY TO ME ABOUT THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE INFO.

I received emails from an animal rights org & a NYC Park Ranger confirming the deaths of many raccoons. They said that many raccoons were killed, placed in plastic bags and found by a person in the park several nights ago. The person then called the authorities and the dead raccoons were taken to NYC Dept of Health.

The NYC Dept of Health is admitting to this as well but they are not saying much else. Nine of mine are missing for 4 days now, only saw total of 3 in the park last night. I'd estimate 98% to 99% were killed. It was illegal but animal rights org said it will be impossible to prove that any NYC Depts were involved in killing them. Probably some sleazebag unprofessional pest control & NYC animal control employees were hired by some rich anti-wildlife New Yorkers to do this.

The Humane Society was ineffective at stopping this, I involved them weeks ago. However, they were apparently misled. I have involved another org. because The Humane Society should have realized that they were being duped/misled, they are a BIG professional org. Nine of my group are dead because of this.

Although a serious crime was committed, the story has not been covered by any News stations here- VERY curious. If anyone is an Animal/Wildlife Rights professional here and wants to see the park ranger's email, message me back w/ an email addy.

I will be really busy gathering evidence for this case. IN A NUTSHELL: The NYC DOH lied to the Humane Society. There are at least 10 raccoons missing from my group. I've counted heads almost every night for the past 7 months. Either the NYC DOH is lying or Central Park hired a private pest control service and they killed them after 9:30 PM, after I leave the park every night. Plus a Central Park employee told me that she saw Animal Control which is a Div of NYC Dept of Health take alot of raccoons out of the park several nights ago!!

I got this email from the humane society today:

I don't know what to say! This is very strange. I spoke to Dennis Slate --National Rabies Program Coordinator for the USDA APHIS Wildlife Services Rabies Program -- 2 days ago who assured me that the plan for a Trap Vaccinate and Release program is being formulated and will begin in February. He said that the lethal raccoon trapping plan which I inititially heard about --- and which was mentioned bythe State USDA WS director Martin Looney and seemingly by Sally Slavinski -- has been abandoned and that many meetings since has resulted in a solid and sound plan to do an rabies vaccination plan. He said the only raccoons that would be killed would be any sickly or neurological ones --of which they expected very few-- but the goal is to vaccinate as many as possible. I will confirm with Sally and the Health Commissioner this week. I was happy to hear of the program turnaround and honestly, Dennis Slate is not the kind of person to mislead. His entire Rabies Control Program is based on vaccinating rabies-vector species. I also spoke to Ward Stone NYS Wildlife Pathologist for the DEC and Charles Rupprecht, Rabies Program Coordinator for the CDC -- both felt that a trapping program would be the wrong approach and that a TVR and/or oral vaccination program is the best and proven way to go.Is there any way you can ferret out more solid evidence of trapping? Heresay is hard to confirm!

If you haven't already signed, please do. It's more important now than ever to get more signatures so that we can try to change the barbaric practices of NYC Dept. of Health. Please do NOT message me about this article or the petition but please feel free to forward it. Thank-you.

This article is dedicated to the many Central Park NYC raccoons who were recently killed by NYC Dept of Health.

Unlike Canada, NYC does not allow for an observation period to determine if raccoons suspected of having rabies actually have the disease. Instead, they immediately kill them.

In Jan. 2010, ten Central Park raccoons were killed because one in their vicinity had rabies. According to the NYC Dept of Health website, only one of those raccoons actually had rabies. This means that nine were senselessly and prematurely killed. Raccoons are not "pests", they are as intelligent as monkeys, beautiful and fun to watch. These were fantastic raccoons whom many New Yorkers, animal lovers and tourists enjoyed observing and they did not deserve such a terrible end.

Montreal remains the only Canadian city that has ever had to confront raccoon rabies on its doorstep - it never threatened Toronto or Ottawa before it was eradicated in Ontario in 2005.

Montreal remains the only Canadian city that has ever had to confront raccoon rabies on its doorstep - it never threatened Toronto or Ottawa before it was eradicated in Ontario in 2005.

But three years into Quebec's fight against the virulent rabies strain that in a worst-case scenario could spread from raccoons to dogs and cats and then humans, Quebec's lead scientist on raccoon rabies is expressing guarded optimism.

As a massive summer vaccination campaign draws to a close, Denise Bélanger said Quebec is in a much better position than it was when the fatal rabies virus was first detected in 2006 in southwestern Quebec along the Vermont border.

After an initial spread, the rabies variant carried by raccoons, skunks and foxes has stopped on the east side of the Richelieu River, south of St. Jean sur Richelieu, 40 kilometres south of Montreal, Bélanger said.

That's good news because an immunological barrier is now in place to help protect Montreal and the South Shore, said Bélanger, a Université de Mont-réal professor of veterinary medicine in St. Hyacinthe and chairperson of Quebec's scientific committee on raccoon rabies.

"We are doing everything so it doesn't happen," Bélanger said.

This summer more than a million rabies vaccines were air-dropped or hand-planted over a 9,500-square-kilometre area of southwestern Quebec, including a 10-kilometre-wide band along the St. Lawrence River from Kahnawake to Verchères.

Throughout towns and cities on the South Shore, wildlife control teams of animal technicians and professional trappers employed by the provincial Department of Natural Resources hand-planted 50,000 rabies vaccines, baited and labelled.

The oral vaccine known as Onrab has proved to be between 60 and 85 per cent effective. It was placed twice in urban raccoon habitats - from local parks to garbage dumps, ravines and along rail and hydro-line corridors wrapped in a bait attractive to raccoons.

Then, another 60,000 vaccines were dropped from low-flying helicopters into woods, corn fields and other raccoon hot spots, further strengthening the vaccination's reach on the South Shore.

The hope now, Bélanger said, is that the immunological barrier will hold tight while wildlife biologists, immunologists, veterinarians and provincial and municipal government officials begin work on the next phase.

Starting this fall, Bélanger said, the scientific committee on raccoon rabies will begin mapping Montreal, charting raccoon habitats and identifying high-density locations, places where as many as 100 raccoons live in a one-kilometre-square area.

It's all part of developing an island-wide surveillance plan and emergency response that, she said, could be put into action in Montreal, Longueuil, Sherbrooke or any other city setting.

Quebec may still be six or seven years away from eradicating raccoon rabies, but with each year optimism grows.

So far this year there have been only 26 cases of raccoon rabies - compared with 77 cases last year - and this year's cases are concentrated in a tighter geographical area.

"We are not reinventing the wheel," said Pierre Canac-Marquis of Quebec's Department of Natural Resources, in charge of the raccoon-rabies operations, including the summer vaccination program.

Although raccoon rabies never got within 80 kilometres of Toronto or Ottawa, he said, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Long Island have all had experiences with the disease.

Quebec is learning from the experience of these cities. It's also benefitting from advances in the raccoon-rabies vaccines as well as improved delivery systems, he said.

Last year, close to 60 per cent of raccoons and 50 per cent of skunks that were trapped and given blood tests six weeks after the vaccination campaign proved to be successfully vaccinated.

Right now, he said, an operation is under way on the South Shore to see whether that number has increased. Close to 1,000 raccoons and skunks will be live-trapped over the next several weeks and tested for rabies antibodies.

ccornacchia@thegazette.canwest.com

These are the messages from a trusted friend on care2. She lives there and is every night in this park!